


Caveat Venditor

by AceQueenKing



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Attempted Bribery, F/M, Renegade Shepard (Mass Effect), Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 06:10:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18131963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Shepard wasn’t surprised when the Illusive Man demanded an in-person audience after she'd finished the Shadow Broker business with Liara.





	Caveat Venditor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TinderWulf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinderWulf/gifts).



Shepard wasn’t surprised when The Illusive Man demanded an in-person audience after she'd finished with Liara.  Time was running short with the Collectors, and Shepard had been in covert ops long enough to know that half the battle was intel, won and lost to the sheer ability to know what your enemy doesn't. Easier to size someone up, in person.

She was a little surprised when he asked to meet in the Citadel; more so when he asked to meet in a hotel no one in the Alliance could afford, not even Udina. She supposed it was impressive the Illusive Man could still pay for it, despite all his Asari matriarch mistresses. That was an expensive habit, she thought. She had read the former Shadow Broker’s file on him a few times. Disappointing. Typical demagogue; the Illusive Man drank too much, smoked too much, fucked too much.

The perfect target for a moll, truthfully. Shepard worked covert ops long enough to recognize that, too; it was a two-way street, this little game. He had been trying to prime her for this meeting, sending her new gifts that he thought she’d like — guns, food, a ship, a necklace, a ring — and in return, he wanted her. In whatever way he wanted her.

Which is why Shepard found herself wearing the little black dress Kasumi found, why she came to his hotel, why she obeyed his little beck and call.  She had always been a practical woman. If he wanted her to beg, she’d beg, and walk away with a shiny new gun for it. Some may have called it whoring, but Shepard didn’t care; she was out of the Spectres, out of the Alliance, and she needed firepower and if the only way to get it lay in his bed — well.

Living another day meant a damn hell ass more than her pride. Pride had died on Alchera.

She swiped the keycard in the hotel, not bothering to redo her lipstick. Men like the Illusive Man, they weren’t interested in her beauty — he’d had better this week, she’d seen proof of it. He wanted power. She wasn’t wasting a second round of _razzleberry red_ on _him_.

She marched to his door, not bothering to walk demurely. Anyone who passed her could easily see she was a soldier, but she didn’t care. She knocked on the door, and he opened it. He was already wearing a robe. She wondered if she was his first appointment of the day, and raised an eyebrow.

“Come in, Shepard,” he purred. She did. She felt his eyes as she passed; he closed the door behind her.  His hand touched just the hint of her arm as he crossed her path, walking over to the bar and sitting in front of I, pouring himself a whiskey that cost more than her childhood home.

He gestured to the cabinet. “Anything here catch your eye?”

She walked behind him, sat int eh chair next to him, leaned over and put her cleavage on display. She placed one hand on his knee as she pretended to examine the contents. Typical upper-crust shit; all Asari-wines and Turian-ales and a few high-end human delicacies. She gestured toward an Asari honey-wine; he handed it to her.

“What are we drinking to?” She asked, voice purposefully just a little low. She took a sip; slightly sweet, slightly acrid. Like her purpose here, she supposed.

“To new lives, new possibilities.” He chuckled and their glasses clinked together. “Shepard, with you, Cerberus will go farther than ever I thought it possible. Defending humanity against one of its biggest threats?  I couldn’t be prouder.”  What he meant, but didn’t say, was how much he loved the positive PR, because, for every person who wanted to be the next Shepard, there was another recruit for his ground troops.

“R and D invested enough in me,” she said, playing modest while fingering the necklace he’d bought her. It suited her; gunmetal grey chain, a simple and lovely pendant carved in citrine and black, smoky quartz. His colors, she noticed. It had been the first more “personal” gift he’d given her. “Gotta give you some return on the investment, right?”

“Hm.” Not quite a disagreement; unsurprising. Typical capitalist, in the end; he wanted a return on his investment, quickly and multiple times over what he’d paid. “I was very involved in the rebuild process, you know.”

 _I don’t doubt it_ , she thought; in addition to the new and damn-near superhuman musculature, she’d had a few things…changed, from what they had been. Her ass had certainly never been so full before burning up over alchera, her breasts definitively larger than they had been. It wasn’t implants, Miranda had insisted, so much as guesswork; there weren’t a lot of quality pictures of her out of armor and they’d had to make….guestimates in putting back together her DNA. With the Illusive Man involved, she was certain those estimates were made to his tastes.

“I brought you something.” He smirked, his eyes literally glowing in the dim light. She’d thought his glowing eyes had been a holo-trick to obscure people from deploying retinal scanners if they picked up any transmission, but nope; whatever implant he’d had, it made his eyes light up like Christmas tree lights. She wondered if it was purely decorative, if he could switch it on and off. He struck her as the type who wanted to keep a low profile, but with high-end tastes.

“Oh?” She, too, could play non-committal. He smirked and put his drink down; she supposed now that they were close to the main event, good. The sooner she finished up here, the sooner she could head out on her way, and hope Tali didn’t ask too many questions about where her new shotgun had come from.

He patted his lap. “Come and sit a second.” It was bold, and she knew it would be more than a second. Still, she complied, drinking down the last of her honey-mead and politely making a show of not adjusting her skirt before sitting on his lap. She didn’t turn to face him, figured neither of them wanted that. They weren’t intimate types, him and her.  She wiggled her way onto his lap, and a hand lazily glided over her stomach; an ‘accidental’ glance, she was sure.

“Good girl.” She rolled her eyes, safe in the liberty that he couldn’t see her. Honestly, what a cheesy line.

She felt something cold being draped over her head, a stone; she looked down to find a bluish white diamond hanging from her neck, carved into the shape of the Normandy. It was a very accurate model, and large; the sort of thing she’d never afford on her alliance salary — down to the huge cannon Garrus had been parroting about but she hadn’t had the luxury of affording. “That cannon should be on-line by the time you get back,” he whispered into her hair.

“Oh,” she said, quiet; she leaned back a bit as his lips ghosted the edge of her ear.

“Do you like it?” He asked, and she knew what he expected her answer to be.

“Oh, yes.” She chuckled, closing the cold stone around her hand in a purposefully shaky grip. “I suppose you think you’ve bought my loyalty, now.”

In truth, of course, he expected to have bought that long ago: expected Shepard would be worshiping at the house of Cerberus out of the sheer joy of being alive again, out of being given a ship and told to do what she had to do, with a minimum of interference from the higher echelons. She wondered if he saw himself in her, if he wanted her because she reminded him of himself before his last few decades as a terrorist.

“I don't expect your loyalty, Shepard,” he said, whispering directly into her ear. She raised an eyebrow and didn’t twitch as he kissed her neck, mouth sliding over the chain he’d wrapped around her neck. “I expect your submission.”

She hissed as he turned her head toward him, pressing a kiss gently into her mouth. It tasted like ashes and smoke; fitting, if not appealing. But still, Shepard leaned into it, leaned into it more as his hand skirted her thighs. She would play the part now. Humanity needed her. If she survived the ambush with the collectors with the help of his gifts, so much the better.

 


End file.
